Science Crisis Continues

Tired of hearing how children in other countries are smarter than Americans? Well, sorry. There’s more bad news.

American students continue to lag behind other industrialized nations in science and math skills, according to results of the Program for International Student Assessment, a test given to 15-year-olds in 30 countries.

Finland and Hong Kong kicked butt in both math and science, while U.S. students posted lower-than-average scores in both categories, according to the Associated Press.

Children in 16 countries scored better than Americans in science and children in 23 countries beat them in math. Check out the results for yourself.

In the education and business world, there is widespread fear that America has lost its edge in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM fields. Yes, there still are plenty of foreign scientists to stock our PhD programs and work in our labs, but America is no longer Oz for these budding scientists. India and China are offering great research jobs too.

And shouldn’t we be growing our own scientists anyway? Most educators think so, but lots of students are turned off by science, despite the government’s efforts to buy their interest with scholarships.

Palo Alto College and Texas A&M University, for instance, just won a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to offer scholarships to San Antonio students majoring in STEM fields. At least 23 students will start at Palo Alto and move on to College Station to earn a four-year degree.

Which is great. But projects like these are small and piecemeal. Do we need another Manhattan Project to get America back in the science race? What do you think?